Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: On Valnetine's Day .. let us spread the message of love!

Saturday, February 14, 2009

On Valnetine's Day .. let us spread the message of love!

Love, love changes everything Hands and faces, earth and sky

Love, love changes everything How you live and how you die

Love, can make the summer fly Or a night seem like a lifetime

Yes love, love changes everything

Now I tremble at your name

Nothing in the world will ever be the same

Love, love changes everything Days are longer, words mean more

Love, love changes everything Pain is deeper than before

Love will turn your world around And that world will last forever

Yes love, love changes everything

Brings you glory, brings you shame

Nothing in the world will ever be the same

Off into the world we go Planning futures, shaping years

Love burts in and suddenly all our wisdom disappears

Love makes fools of everyone All the rules we made are broken

Yes love, love changes everyone

Live or perish in its flame

Love will never never let you be the same

“Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what gets you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.” (Pedro Arupe sj)

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What do we want this novitiate to be?

There is a saying that goes something like this: “If we don’t do what we believe in, then we’ll end up believing in what we do”. Without a vision that is authentic and alive to guide our actions, then we can settle for rationalizing the status quo or what is convenient and comfortable.
One of the first things the new team in Tamale did was to spend time beginning to articulate its vision of a novitiate beyond the basics laid down in our Constitutions. Here are some elements of what we came up with:
Novitiate is a journey, a process that involves KNOWING, EXPERIENCING and CHOOSING.
It is an INITIATION into Christian Brother religious life, so a “rite of passage” into a new identity, a time of learning and testing.
Novitiate confronts the novices with the Brother’s vocation as a call to brotherly solidarity and community, not to privilege, status and security.
It involves exploration of the basic values of faith and vocation, and the challenge to embrace these out of personal conviction and free choice.
Novitiate means understanding that a religious vocation makes a claim on the whole of the person and his life, including his inner life, his relationships and his professional activity (ministry). Furthermore, it challenges the novice to see the dynamic inter-relationship of these areas and to learn what their integration means.
Novitiate is a time of DISCERNMENT. The novice learns more deeply who he is, and what this Christian Brother life is. There is a constant back-and-forth movement between these two poles as an answer is sought to the question, “Is this where I am meant to be? Is this the life that will enable me to find my true self in God?”